Sucks
by Summer Chill
Summary: A missing momnet in the third season between Max and Emily, following the American Qualifying Tournament.


This is the beginning of Max and Emily mini-series, consisting of the non-existent (until now) missing scenes. This happens in season three after the American qualifying tournament

Disclamer: This would totally be in the show if I owned it.

"Sucks" Emily, being higher on the intellectual scale than most, usually tried to find adjectives that best fir the situation as well as her superior intellect. But with all her brains and years of buzz-word study she couldn't come up with a better description of what had just happened to her team than a simplistic, crude "Sucks".

Back when Steve first had his accident and could no longer compete, Emily knew there'd be some changes, but she never expected Judy to completely change the Team line up. The original All Stars were gone, and in their place were a cocky street junkie and a naïve blonde ex-world champ. Sucks, indeed.

"Emily!" The male voice with just a hint of accent echoed down the long locker room hallway to the smoldering red head. Why was he following? She gave him the chance to laugh already so if he wanted to take up the offer now she'd have to let him know it was expired with a lump the size of her launcher on his head.

"Come on Emily, wait up!" god was he obnoxious If she didn't acknowledged him the first time then why would she the second? She entered one of the vacant dressing rooms hoping he would finally get the point.

And yet, the door swung open less than a minute after Emily entered, showing a bushel of blonde hair bent over breathing heavily. "Emily, why didn't you answer me?"

Stupid question. "Because I didn't want to! Okay!" She snapped. Max still panting from his sprint giving Emily enough time to look at herself in the mirror. 'Ugh'. Her eyes were all red from the few tears she shed earlier, and her hair was sticking out oddly again. On top of that her face was red and blotches, most likely caused by a mix of sadness, frustration, anger and what she like to call the "red-head curse".

"I just wanted to talk to you." Obviously recovering his breath, Max took a few steps closer to the techno-wiz.

Her fists slammed down on the counter in front of her, "Well I don't want to talk to YOU".

"Emily please…I'm not going to apologize for wining-"

"I never asked you to!"

Ignoring his cut off Max continued, "-but I know your upset about the whole team match up thing"

'Damn right I'm upset,' she thought while fighting the new wave of tears tat where coming over her.

"But your still part of the All Stars. There's a really good chance that you'll end up blading at the World Championships."

"Oh, how's that possible," she said as condescendingly as possible, still refusing to turn around to face him.

"Well… If Rick or I are injured, or one of us can't compete-"

"SO I'M SECOND STRING!" she wheeled on him so quickly Max barely had time to raise his hands in instinctual defense.

"Hey now," he could see the anger building her eyes. "I was just-"

"STEVE GETS HIT BY A CAR, AND WE LOOSE ONE OF OUR FAMILY. THEN IN WALKS THIS STREET THUG WITH HIS STUPID LOUD MUSIC, AND THEN JUDY CALLS YOU UP, SINCE WE'RE OBVIOUSLY NO LONGER GOOD ENUOUGH, TO COME HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD. ONE OF OUR FORMER COMPETETORS NO LESS. AND SUDDENLY WE'RE NO LONGER DOWN ONE BUT COMPLETELY OBSOLETE" Angry tears were pouring down her face at this point," AND NOW YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO COME TELL ME AT LEAST I'M A REPLACEMENT!"

Max was a little more than stunned at Emily's outburst. He'd seen Emily mad before, but never like this. "Um, Emily just calm down." Max tried to put his hands on her arms in a comforting short of way.

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" She roughly shook his arms off.

"EMILY LISTEN TO ME!"

"NO!" Screw the fact she sounded like a two year-old in a hissy fit.

"EMILY!" Max grabbed both her wrist that were trying to swat him away. "YOUR STILL A VITAL PART OF THIS TEAM! Neither Rick nor I could ever analyze and understand stats the way you can. We still need YOU!"

She couldn't object to that last part, and not only because of her pride. She highly doubted Rick knew how to work anything electronic except for the play and pause buttons on his boom box, and she had never seen Max near a computer. It was her turn to be breathing heavily. But would she be silenced this easily? Not If she could help it.

Her eyes snapped up to met Max's with a saucy comeback on the tip of her tongue. But it never came out. There was just a freeze.

Neither had noticed how close they'd gotten to each other, with Emily backed up by against the counter, Max only inches away holding her wrists, If anyone walked in they would get a very wrong idea. Or was it wrong?

As cheesy as Emily knew it was, it felt like hours of just being frozen stiff staring into blue eyes, and was it just her or were they coming closer. The Red-head didn't know if it was her who moved forward or max but somehow the inches were non-existent and Emily's lips were touching Max's.

It was so simple, to lip merely touching, so lightly it was almost like in a dream. Emily was wide-eyed, however she noticed that Max's were closed. 'Should she do the same? Was it supposed to be this light? What the Hell? HOLY SHIT THIS IS MY FIRST KISS! Should she apply pressure or something?' all these thoughts ran through Emily's mind at 60 mph. And then it was over.

They just sort of snapped out of it and pulled back. Emily's mind was still racing but it looked like Max's had melted. "I…um…. Mom said something about visiting Steve we better kiss- I mean catch up to her" Flustered Max turned for the door and jerked Emily with him.

"Max!" she started at the sudden up heave of steadiness, it was then both realized that Max had no let go of Emily's wrists. "Oh… um…sorry." He let go and another awkward pause followed.

"….Why don't you find Judy-"

"Good idea-"

and then I catch up later-"

"I your sure-"

"I'm just going to wash up a bit-"

-okay, well I'll see you-"

"I'll see you to-"

"Well goodbye th-"

"Yeah Bye" and with that all cleared up Max zoomed for the door while Emily slumped against the counter. A hand came up to touch her lips. 'My first kiss was in a locker room,' and yet she smiled to herself. "That kind of Sucks."


End file.
